Application and Interaction
My Reflection
This week the start of a new brief on industry set projects. Through this lecture, the designers from various practices gave great insight into the way they research and identify new industry projects. There were some really interesting comments in the lecture video and the designer that stood out for me was Torsten Posselt from Feld, Berlin. He really made it clear on how to be selective with your brief and follow your instinct in personal preference but also the connection you might not have directly for the brief. Choose a project that you can identify new areas of interest that allows you to explore and discover new things, that will keep things interesting and on your toes. Listening to his comments made me think I can relate to that in ways of trying to challenge myself in everyday life in learning something new. I feel when I personally approach a project that’s not a personal preference to me, I can get myself in a bit of a rut when researching and thinking of ideas. It is this I need to learn to deal with and push forward in my research and learn to expand my research that little bit more. It helped that he said that at times it might be hard in the first place but maybe rewarding once you follow through to the end of a project. This is what I need to remember to be persistent in finding the answers to a brief.
Thinking about this area of identifying new industry projects you have to have a key interest in a project brief because otherwise, you won’t have the fire to succeed and push forward your challenge for an outcome. So you have to find a balance that works to your needs that keeps your interest at heart but show passion and the need to make a change for the client or subject on the area of interest. So in insight, you have to be honest to yourself to make the right choices in your approach so you can fulfill a project with the right skill sets that match your potential to do great work. Remember that curiosity leads to things that make you choose the right direction to fulfill your desire to accept a project that can make a difference for you and the outcome to others. I really love graphic design and it’s the learning, discovering, exploring, thinking, and curiosity that gets the best of me and for me to learn how I approach these feelings to create great work but also set myself in the right direction to an outcome.
Michael Bierut on how to think like a designer
This talk from Michael Bierut was great and love the way he presents his work. With great confidence but with a witty and humorous way of presenting his work as this showed in much of his projects. He really shows with each project there are trial and error with the development in the work at different stages of producing towards the outcome and putting it in front of the client. When at times you may find you’ve failed it might be the fact you have to test the water to really find the right solution to what you or the client is looking for. Within the first part of his talk, he discusses ‘How to destroy the world with graphic design’ at the beginning to make things at ease. This was great how he picked up on a graphic designer Theresa Lepore put together the ballot paper design for the presidential election in the year 2000 which was a massive controversy on George W Bush winning the election in Florida state.
I really enjoyed the work he did for Nuts.com and also the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine which was great projects and have their own witty approach through design. I feel this is what has drawn to me liking his projects as they show great character and it’s the designer’s interest and perseverance that helps these projects. The Times signage and environment project again was an example of turning something that could have been a typical signage job with the ethics of using great typography and layout design but Bierut still had room to place witty suggestions within the project.
Further Research
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Workshop Challenge
This week’s challenge is to read, research, and analyse the four preselected ‘Industry Set’ project briefs that were given to us in this part of the module. We have to break down our process for choosing the brief we will like to go forward and doing so we need to gather some knowledge about the kind of direction we can take in each brief. Below you’ll find written short preliminary notes about each option to help with which project I would like to work on over the next 8 weeks.
Notes on project briefs
Brief 1 International Competition (Live)
Creative Conscience
I really took to this brief as I can relate to my own battles with mental health issues in the last few years with anxiety, and depression. I have completely related to the emotions of how strenuous depression can take hold of someone as this had an effect on my personal life. Talking about it was always the harder issue to explain to others about your personal emotional feelings, than trying to deal with it on your own. I’ve been thinking over time if my own mental health had been affected by my learning disability in the past that built up over time where confidence in my ability has challenged on a day-to-day. I am dyslexic and have struggled through my years of accepting this in my everyday life and through my education. It has been over time I have been able to learn and understand my own abilities, which if I knew more earlier in my life I could challenged things differently in finding the right tools to help me. If I take this root I was thinking to look at how mental health and dyslexia have an effect on people and do people really know much about this relationship, as they both have a strong stigma around both topics.
Pentagram Project – The Mental Health Coalition
Lucy Grange – A Different Way of Brain Processing: Dyslexia
Josh Penn brings awareness to dyslexia with kinetic typography
Brief 2 International Competition (Concluded)
D&AD New Blood Awards
This is a really cool brief and personally is right there for me as an interest of sports and truly believe sports can and has made lasting effects in communities to change the morale and belief in issues and wellbeing of others. I like this brief as it has scope for innovative and impactful approaches to create an amazing experience through social behaviour, communities, and empathy for positivity to bring to life the Adidas brand.
Brief 3 Live Collaboration
Application and Interactions
When I looked at this brief I really like the idea of working in collaboration for a MA project to show the outcome of learning together. This is something I’m very used to in my day-to-day job and would exceed in doing this with a project I would feel would be great for me to learn through others. At work, we’re coming up to a busy period of Christmas and as we deal with shopping centers we have to work with ideas to keep family entertained and drive footfall in the centers. So we’ve already started working on an AR experience (keeping in mind with safe distancing) of a Christmas trail through using augmented reality that can be easily accessible for a very mobile-friendly approach. One thing about this is the project has begun and secondly we are using an external agency to work on the illustration and development which I will be working on the designs of the campaign. So really I felt I couldn’t have more input into this for my MA project to show the outcome.
Brief 4 Research and Development
Science Museum
I absolutely love this brief as I firstly enjoy visiting the Science Museum and interested in finding new discoveries in the world of science. This brief really shows a great innovative and conceptional approach in exploring an experience for people to enjoy that there is more to find than what we see. It’s the storytelling and bringing into an age of digital and wayfinding that makes me interested in doing this project. I feel I have a good start with the digital aspect of this brief as I have good knowledge but I always want to expand and push for new ideas that can help people to interact physically and digitally. There is a point where there is the right balance to connect the two so that conversation can be made not only through our screens but in a physical social approach too. For the audience, the brief wants to target I would like to explore the idea of play, create, and connect.
How museums are using immersive digital experiences
Future of Content: Immersive Experiences
teamLab forest in fukuoka
Studio Play, Cleveland Museum of Art
Decode Lab
Chosen Brief
The choice I have gone for the industry set brief is ‘Brief 1 Creative Conscience – Mental Health’. I really contemplated choosing between this and the science museum brief as I was drawn to either project. I feel I’ve done the correct decision in choosing this as my personal preference going forward which I believe will be beneficial to my outcome.
I believe there is a strong connection between mental health and learning disabilities that affect millions of people in this country. I believe people suffer from self-esteem and low moods in their own abilities through education and the working environment without the help and respect of others that they should have.
I feel there can be a platform to be created to open up a conversation on this subject matter and make more people aware of these issues. Looking into the relationship of dyslexia and mental health together, I feel there can be an opportunity to remove the stigma surrounding them. I hope looking into this area will open conversation on the issue and learn a new direction in speaking up about the mental health aspect for people with learning difficulties.
Research and Discovery
Three creative studios who created competing projects
Lucy Grainge
A Different Way of Brain Processing: Dyslexia
This series of books called A Different Way of Brain Processing: Dyslexia by Lucy Grainge is really nice illustrative books which, give a broader understanding of dyslexia, celebrating its diversity rather than seeing it as a disability. I would be interested in looking through this collection of booklets as the research was gathered by face to face interviews, questionnaires, current research surrounding Dyslexia, and my personal experience. This is a great starting point for research structure to collate information in producing such lovely work. The booklets show a strong visual presence and not too much copy as this reflects the behaviour of dyslexic traits.
Lucy describes that Dyslexia is not about problems with reading and writing but it’s more multi-faceted to the complexity of how dyslexic minds work altogether. This can lead to plenty of confusion about how people with and without the condition to simply understand their strengths and weaknesses. This is a very abstract booklet and a word like to see more play on words to get a better understanding of the issue and how it can affect mentally the people living with dyslexia. These illustrations can be pushed further than just being placed in booklets and would love to see them on a larger scale for an audience to embrace the lovely work Lucy Grainge has produced.
Josh Penn
A Different Way of Brain Processing: Dyslexia
This kinetic typography motion video by Josh Penn is fantastic. This communicates as to what dyslexia is really like through this motion image of typography. I love the movement of the type flickering and spinning around the screen the make it difficult to read the jumble words, to give an insight into how dyslexia affects people. The way the letters morph and disappear shows the impression of how people suffer from the disorder. This video gives such a great insight and emotion of a person that suffers from Dyslexia that you can imagine the challenges you have to face with anxiety and stress of trying to make clear what your message is trying to say to people that are not aware.
Penn speaks about there’s still more room for improvement which is great for his reflection and I can see that this can be pushed more through other mediums and ideas to create something that can be spectacular in an event of things that can bring experience to an audience. Would be interesting to see some tech that can be used to jumble words for a person that doesn’t have the condition so they get a better perspective experience of the condition. In saying this it would be a big task to find and researching the tools to make this happen.
Pentagram
The Mental Health Coalition
This project from Pentagram really drew my intention by the device of the square inside the circle with the range of colour palette which is very bold and courageous in its visuals. The idea of the square peg in a round hole symbolically represents there is no ‘normal’ when it comes to mental health and that everybody fits. I love this concept and it’s this that brings the kind of direction I want to succeed in my outcome. Very inspirational and an influence on what I want to try and achieve in this project. I talked about the colour palette and I know from my experience that these colours are significant to people with Dyslexia or visual impairment that bold colours like these are suited for engaging with the right audience. I feel this is one of the reasons I was drawn to it because the aesthetics are very driven by design, but does it really communicates to its audience in a positive attitude to make the conversation of the subject. This is what I would consider on this project is the concept really working and does it need some platform that can engage to get the conversation started. In saying this the copywriting is fantastic as they’re questions that are a conversation starter and the way using the square peg in the round hole as the graphical device. It’s just finding a way to bring people together to create that engagement.
Additional Practice Projects
Dan Britton’s typeface recreates the frustration of reading with dyslexia
Dyslexic Objects win New Designer of the Year Award 2013
Ideas Wall
Weekly Reflection
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